Gerwyn Price hits nine-darter in Premier League as Luke Littler has priceless reaction

bagged the fourth nine- of the season and even was made up for his opponent, giving him a huge hug and joining in on the celebrations. After two 180s, the Welshman went T19, T20, D12 to record a second nine-darter in two years in Manchester.

Littler gave Price a smile before being grabbed for a quick word, then shook his opponent's hand as they continued to laugh it up on stage, with the 18-year-old showing his class in the North-West. The reigning world champion could afford to react in such a manner, however, having been up 5-1 prior to the perfect leg and going on to win 6-3. Littler had not beaten Price in six games and could be seen saying "about time" in their post-match handshake.

The crowd were clearly on Littler's side, cheering on their man from Warrington, and took issue with Price when the 2021 world champion won his first leg and screamed at the oche.

But he soon won them over with a nine-darter, as the camera panned around and showed the vast majority of the AO Arena on their feet.

Incredibly, now half of the Premier League players have found nine perfect darts this season. Price attempted to use his effort to launch a comeback, holding the next leg to put some pressure on Littler.

But the teenager soon fired in his only 180 of the match, leaving 102, reducing that to 52 and swiftly going out on tops. He averaged 103, landed six out of 11 doubles and made a 108 checkout to finally get one over on Price.

Premier League table-topper Littler set up a semi-final with after and also claimed quarter-final wins in the top half of the draw.

Van Gerwen, who missed last week's competition in Berlin after , returned in style to put Chris Dobey away 6-4.

Aspinall, also playing in front of his home crowd, put on a show to down 6-2 and move level with Voltage in fifth-place.

Meanwhile Humphries, who about the amount of darts being played, was in no mood to hang around and dominated Stephen Bunting to win 6-1.

He averaged 118.43 against last week's winner, a record in Manchester, to set up a semi with Van Gerwen.